Polymer clay UV light fastness trial - after 3 years

I started this trial on 12 December 2021. Six months on, I looked at the tiles after cleaning off all the sticky residue from the black masking tape (top row in photo). There was slight yellowing of the exposed area on the white and purple tiles but this is not easy to see in the photo. The neutral tiles showed no noticeable change to the colours but the varnish has attracted a lot of dust/dirt, so I would definitely not use varnish on items intended for outdoors.

The bottom row of the photo shows the tiles after three years. The heat of the sun on the black masking tape had almost welded it in place. I decided it wasn't worth the time it would take to try and remove the tape and clean off the sticky residue. It was quite clear that all the colours had faded and the white, pearl and translucent colours had discoloured considerably. The white had yellowed (not so easy to see in the photo) but the pearl and translucent had almost gone brown.

Sadly, this experiment has confirmed that polymer clay is not suitable, in terms of light fastness, for long term use outside.

Polymer clay UV light fastness trial - after 6 months

I started this trial on 12 December 2021. Six months on, I looked at the tiles after cleaning off all the sticky residue from the black masking tape. There was slight yellowing of the exposed area on the white and purple tiles but this is not easy to see in the photo. The neutral tiles showed no noticable change to the colours but the varnish has attracted a lot of dust/dirt, so I would definitely not use varnish on items intended for outdooors.

Trial after 6 months

Polymer clay UV light fastness trial - after 3 months

I started this trial on 12 December 2021. Three months on, I looked at the tiles. There was no change to the coloured tiles. On the neutral tiles, the varnish has attracted dust but there was no change to colours.

Neutral tiles after 3 months

Polymer clay UV light fastness trial - after 1 month

I started this trial on 12 December 2021. One month on, I looked at the tiles. I did not photograph them because I could not be bothered to clean all the stickness off the surface of the tiles that came from the black tape but it was quite clear that there was no change to the colour of any of the tiles. 

Polymer clay UV light fastness trial

For some time I have felt it is a shame that I cannot sell my polymer clay mosaics/creations for outdoor use, as the colours will fade if exposed long term to sunlight. How much and how quickly this will happen, I do not know, so I have decided to set up a trial. I wanted to get this going now, as we are just entering the summer months (in New Zealand) and our sunlight is extremely harsh, so it will be a good test.

I am currently using the New Zealand made brand of polymer clay, called Du-Kit, as it has been hard to get Sculpey Premo (my prefered brand) since the Covid Lockdowns. To save mixing colours, I am using the ends of some canes that were made for a project, which have a range of colour blends within a particular hue (shown to the left in the photo below). I have also included some neutral colours (shown to the right in the photo below): black, grey made from 50% black and 50% white, white, pearl, transluscent and Super Sculpey (grey). 

The polymer clay tiles have been stuck and grouted to the back of a couple of ceramic wall tiles, as this was all that I readily had to hand. 

The top half of the coloured tiles have been masked off with opaque black plastic tape. I am hoping this will hold up to the long term effects of the weather.

There are two rows of tiles in the neutral colours. The top half of the top row has been masked off with opaque black plastic tape. The bottom row has been used to test UV protective varnish; the upper half of the bottom row has 2 layers of Josefine Very Matt Varnish and the bottom half has 2 layers of Josefine Satin Varnish.

Today (12th December 2021) I have placed the trial tiles on the bottom rail of the garden fence that gets plenty of sunshine during the day.

I plan to check how much colour fading has occurred after 1 month, 3 months, 6 months and 12 months. Then, depending on the results, I may continue to monitor.

Labour Day Art & Craft Market at Mission Bay 2011

The weather was perfect for this years market but things were pretty quite during the morning - I guess a lot of people were sleeping in after celebrating New Zealand winning the Rugby World Cup last night. Despite the All Blacks Parade around the city centre in the afternoon, a lot more people came to the market later in the day.

I had a wide range of polymer clay items for sale including brooches, HANGAs, artwork and many one-off trial pieces. However, I made a discovery which was rather alarming, for my most recent line of 'beachwear accessories'. The intensity of the sun was so great it caused the sarong buckles, and other thinner items at the front of my table, to get so hot they became extremely soft and flexible (like when they have just come out of the oven).

After pulling the whole table into the shade, the pieces returned to normal once they had cooled down. It was only a nice Spring day, not the height of Summer, but because there is a whole in the ozone layer over New Zealand the suns rays are extra intense. This may put a stop to my range of polymer clay beachwear accessories. I will have to see what happens if I wear the sarong buckles and other items on the beach during the Summer.

Trial scarf ring

I have finally found a use for my first curved piece, a scarf ring. I made a polymer clay strip to go across the back and baked it on – and it works!

This is much less time consuming than finishing the backs of my brooches (it never seemed right that I would spend longer on the back than the design on the front) and could be a different way to wear a ‘small piece of art’. I will do some more work on this, including looking at a ‘fashion clip’ version (this could be the modern brooch).

Trial sarong buckles

Since my idea last month for making some beachwear accessories, here are my first sarong buckles – they are prototypes because I am still experimenting with the overall size and the hole size.

I also decided to make a ‘Kiwi’ one, as I recently purchased a kiwi cutter and it seemed about the right size. This shows the double sided (patterned/plain) idea.

Then I thought it might be better curved and that they needed to be a bit bigger. Obviously if I make them curved they can not be double sided.

The curve on my glass teapot is too much for the larger size (I may have to find a different form) but the single thickness of the curved buckle was too light and did not feel right when I actually tried it with my sarong. So I think I will stick to flat double sided but larger sarong buckles.